


Phantoms of the Mind

by firewolfsg



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Demons, Gang Rape, Insanity, M/M, Mindfuck, Non Consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewolfsg/pseuds/firewolfsg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Psychiatrist has been engaged to extract information from a murder suspect -- a young man, with no record or data about his past, who remembers only his name 'Dante' and who insists that he lives in a world populated by demons.</p>
<p>Finished back in March 2005</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantoms of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Was written for angel_remus and abyss_goat. Abyss_goat showed me what she started and dissuaded me from a fic direction which would have been illegal in the real world;
> 
> Angel dictated what she wanted appearing in the story. And my muse took off with the info & ideas they fed me ^^;;

> "I see Demons."
> 
> "And what are they doing?"
> 
> "Running away from me."
> 
> "Why are they running from you, Dante?"
> 
> "Because I hunt them. But..."
> 
> "What is it, Dante?"
> 
> "Some don't run away. Some-- they want-- the ones that ran away are coming back now-- cause-- cause-- I can't hunt them..." Nothing more is said as doctor and patient fall into a long silence.
> 
> "Dante? Can you tell me about the demons?"
> 
> "You can't see them."

Dr. Conrad Spencer sighed again as he recalled the first conversation he had ever had with this silver-haired patient. Whenever he sat down to review Dante's file, he had to ask himself if it had been such a good idea to take up his friend's offer of a job at this asylum. Sure, it had been the opening he needed after his earlier breakdown and retreat into a bottle following his wife's death near her place of work under mysterious circumstances. Spencer figured too that he owed it to his friend for pulling him out of the gutter of a temporary life as a homeless street artist, and cleaning him up before putting him back in charge of his latest patient.

He knew he had to count himself fortunate to have a posting at this very old and distinguished sanatorium. Truly, it was one of the best in the state and well known as a place for the most hopeless cases to spend the rest of their lives comfortably and in peace. Situated nearly two hours away from the nearest city, and surrounded by nothing but trees and woodlands, the asylum was beyond doubt a quiet and isolated piece of heaven away from the noise and stress of the 'big' city.

However, some six months since the Police had dumped the patient on his lap, demanding that he extract information from him about a possible murder, and Spencer still had nothing to show for all the time and effort he spent with 'Dante'. No one could even be sure that 'Dante' was his real name.

The detectives had certainly run his prints and dental x-rays through all the possible agencies, but nothing had come up; or certainly nothing plausible. It was still up in the air whether anyone would believe this young man to be a Dante Sparda, which his information seemed to match; however, this twenty-something young man couldn't possibly be the same person. A grandson perhaps; at the least some sort of blood relation, but he certainly could not be a man who should have been in his eighties.

Unfortunately, there was also little else to be uncovered about 'Dante Sparda' beyond his name and his deceased family… and unusual notations on his known associates; most of whom apparently having died under atypical circumstances. This young man had himself been discovered in a rather curious situation. He had been found sitting on the pulpit of a church on Central Avenue, soaked in blood. The police had wanted to know whose blood he was covered in and Spencer had been engaged to try and pull the man out of his catatonia.

Treating the man, however, had been a virtual study in frustration. When Dante did choose to break his silence, all he would talk about were demons. Otherwise, he would sit in his corner and stare into space or he would sleep.

Spencer could not understand how or why a young virile man like Dante needed to sleep as much as he did in the day. However, medical evidence did show that the man was indeed often in a state of exhaustion, as if he had run a marathon during the night instead of sleeping as his nurses reported. There weren't even very many observations made of the man having nightmares or disturbed sleep patterns at night. It was quite unlike his sleep in the day. Occasionally, Dante would cause embarrassment among the nurses, male or female, because he would start writhing and moaning in his restraints in the unmistakable, though at first seemingly unusual, motions of sex. However, these vivid terrors weren't apparently happening very often at night.

Spencer did take note that Dante never called out a woman's name in these nightmares. The only name he ever uttered in his throes of phantom sex belonged to a man. 'Remus.' Spencer prided himself as a non-judgemental man. He had to be in his job as a psychologist. However, the revelation of Remus's name had inflamed in him an unprofessional anger for this person.

Dante's complete physical had revealed that his body was not a stranger to anal penetration. Indeed, the many silvery scars found on him were distressing evidence that he was familiar with rape as well as torture and abuse. Given that the man's name was, more often than not, uttered as an expression of despair rather than passion, Spencer thought it rather logical that this 'Remus' was obviously an abusive lover.

Providing this name to the police, however, produced nothing by way of leads. Neither was there any missing person reports made by anyone for someone matching Dante's description. So... Perhaps 'Remus' was not a recent acquaintance.

Another scenario had popped into Spencer's mind, though it had been a speculation that he was far too fond of spy thrillers to have come up with the theory. Spencer found himself wondering if perhaps Dante had escaped from an abuser who had kept him prisoner for a number of years, thereby ensuring that there would be few if any recent acquaintances who would remember him. It was even a romantic notion that the blood Dante was covered in could have belonged to his abuser or abusers as the case may be.

Spencer sighed again as he looked at the reports in his hand, wondering if he should try to acquiesce to the polite request of the head nurse to free Dante from his restraints. Knowing, from physical evidence, that the man had been previously raped, and with strong suspicions that he was physically restrained during the events, Spencer did want to dispense with the straitjackets and chains more than anyone else at the hospital. He was quite sure that the restraints only added to Dante's trauma. However, the two previous times they tried to leave Dante unencumbered in the day, the nurses had had to rush into his room to prevent him from eviscerating himself with his finger nails as he tore at phantom hands that were holding him down.

Curiously, despite the horrendous injuries he'd inflict on himself, Dante never kept any scars from those events. His cuts would scab over and heal within a day, showing smooth unblemished skin when the bandages were removed. However, blood and DNA tests revealed nothing uniquely different in the man. No one had an explanation for this strange medical phenomenon. Given too that the man appeared able to heal without scars, the silvery scarring became even more suspect. So... what could have caused the marks on his flesh when he showed that he could heal without scars?

Spencer did not believe in demons. But sometimes when he looked at Dante, he did wonder if it would be easier to believe since doing so would let them rationalise what had happened to the young man. As fantastic as the idea sounded, if they believed that demons existed, what would that make their silver-haired patient?

*~*~*~*~*

> "Dante, would you tell me about the demons."
> 
> "Don't believe me..."
> 
> "I want to. Would you tell me about them?"

They talked of nothing else since, with Spencer recording all their conversations for later transcription. On a whim, he had bought a large sketch pad, retrieved the crayons he had used for a while when he had lived as a street artist and began making some sketches of the creatures Dante described. When shown the pictures of the 'demons' drawn though, Dante would smile as if in amusement for the romanticised images.

Spencer had at first thought this was the breakthrough he had been waiting for. That perhaps this exercise in turning Dante's demons into actual drawings would help him emerge from the unreal world of his mind. With gentle prompting, Dante did talk a whole lot more about his 'demons' and spent less time staring into space. In fact, it appeared as if Dante looked forward to seeing him when he approached with his 'art' bag of sketch pads and crayons in hand. At the least, Dante was more lucid and well behaved during the day now and though he still had his moments where he enacted a past rape during his afternoon nap, the events also became less frequent. He had the night nurses' assurance that Dante's evenings were quieter as well.

As the days passed though, Spencer was becoming slowly disillusioned with the effectiveness of this therapy, and started wondering if perhaps he had gone the wrong direction in asking about the world in Dante's head. It was a troubling exercise for Spencer to note how clear and concise Dante was with his details. He never got his demon identifications mixed up and he was always precise with his descriptions. Even when Spencer secretly changed a few details on his sketches, Dante could spot the 'abnormalities' immediately and inform him of the inaccuracies. It was a depth of delusion that Spencer had seldom dealt with in his patients. And he was beginning to worry that Dante believed in his demon world too deeply to ever be convinced that it didn't exist.

Spencer was also becoming alarmed with some of the pictures he was creating for Dante. There were some drawings that seemed eerily familiar to him. It had taken him some months to realise why and the revelation had shocked him when he finally remembered. 

Some three months before his wife died, she had confided in Spencer about some strange dreams and images she seemed to be having in the day around her work place. Out of whim, he had made some sketches based on her descriptions. They had had a good laugh over some of the more fanciful characters she claimed to have imagined seeing in the alley outside her office window.

Back then, he had chided her for day dreaming at her desk and loudly wondered if she had been watching horror movies on the sly without him, for her to have imagined seeing demons, dimensional portals and the like. She countered that her real work was so boring it was unsurprising she'd idly imagine seeing demons stepping out of a wall to disguise themselves and merge into the masses of humanity. They would then go on and speculate who among their acquaintances could be a demon in disguise. All in all, it had just been good fun...

The sketches were among the few things he had kept of his wife after her gruesome murder in the alley beside her office building. He had only wanted to remember her as she was then; with tears of laughter in her eyes when he showed her his exaggerated sketches of her imagined fiends.

Now, however... Spencer stared at three of Dante's pictures which he had placed beside three pencil sketches he had made for his wife over two years ago. The similarities were uncanny... Spencer had no explanation as to why or how two so disparate people as his wife and Dante could have imagined and described the same delusional characters.

The simplest explanation was that they had both described what they had seen. But the idea was preposterous. Demons did not exist.

It was only then that Spencer began to guiltily suspect that he had somehow involved himself too deeply in his patient. That perhaps he had projected his longing for his deceased wife into some of the pictures he drew for Dante.

Still, Spencer was unwilling to completely halt the only therapy where he could get a response from his patient. So, he instead removed the pictures that he thought were similar to those that he drew for his wife and started asking Dante for behavioural detail of his demons. Perhaps that would be when he could start the man's thoughts towards accepting that the demons were not real and only existed in his imagination. However, this direction in their sessions proved to be very disturbing since Dante started going into the sexual habits of the creatures.

Spencer could not understand the matter of fact way Dante would describe the size and shape of the demons' cock and how much it hurt to take them in him. When he looked over his notes, Spencer would often wonder if, perhaps, Dante had been held as a prisoner for a long period of time and thus created this demon world to cope. If, perhaps, Dante demonised his attackers and saw them each as a uniquely featured monster when they attacked him; and that remembering them only as demons was the man's way of dealing with the memory of his rape and abuse.

A creature Dante called an Abyss Goat, especially, featured strongly in nearly all of the silver-haired man's tales of abuse. It was a demon that greatly fascinated him though Dante was reluctant to say very much about it. Uniquely, this monster alone of all the others appeared to be capable of taking on human guise as Dante also described him as a man of great stature. However, Spencer could tell that Dante clearly disliked him since it was described as a striking man with hair and eyes the colour of constipated shit and piss. Spencer was to later learn that this demon was the infamous 'Remus' whom he had documented as the tormentor Dante would frequently imagine was raping him.

Spencer had spent a great deal of time trying to persuade Dante to talk about Remus. At the back of his mind, Spencer still had thoughts towards assisting the police in clearing Dante of his suspected murder charge. He had hoped that if they could find out enough about 'Remus', they could have the police handle the matter and make sure the man and his cohorts would never hurt another living being again; as they had hurt Dante.

However, Dante seemed rather insistent that Remus was abusing him almost nightly. A fact that Spencer was assured couldn't be further from the truth. The rooms were monitored 24/7, no one would be able to slip by security without the guards or the nurses knowing of it. The night nurses had even provided Spencer with tapes showing Dante sleeping peacefully, or trashing about as the case may be, and *alone* in his rooms. So… Spencer was left with the impression that Remus was just a hallucination.

He found himself leaning over his files on Dante and ready to scream out his frustration. Pursuing the 'Remus factor' had been a dead end and Spencer realised that he was taking this too personally. He was losing his professional distance with this patient, and his conscience was telling him that he needed to back off or he would never be able to help Dante. And he did so desperately want to help the man and give him back his life.

*~*~*~*~*

Spencer abandoned the line of asking Dante about his demons, not willing to let him continue with his delusion. He started to focus instead on convincing Dante to believe that it was all in his imagination.

At first, the man had become belligerent; insisting he wasn't lying and that he knew what he felt was happening at night. But Spencer countered his arguments with tapes of Dante's room at night, showing him alone in his slumber, be it peaceful or not. He even asked Dante why he had waited so long to tell him and the staff that the rapes was real; why, though he knew Spencer was there to help, he never sought to tell him or the nurses that their security was breached.

Spencer had stayed overnight with Dante after therapy that first day, and Dante had gone on and on to him that he would be killed if he interfered; that Remus would not be thwarted. But though it had proved to be a turbulent night since Dante was locked into frequent violent nightmares, he was visited by his 'Remus' only in his dreams.

Discomforting though it was, Spencer had also worked out that night how to most quickly distract Dante's nightmares and soothe him into untroubled sleep. It was rather distressful for Spencer to determine that Dante needed to be 'touched' and caressed to help him settle down into a less fitful sleep. Fortunately, keeping to touches on his face and lips appeared sufficient and Spencer did not need to fear that the professional ethics of the hospital would suffer as great a blow as he originally feared if he passed on these instructions to the nurses.

During the day, they were to later discover too that Dante appeared to sleep more calmly when he was tended by the male nurses. However, it was to Spencer's dismay that Dante responded most favourably to the nurses who best fitted his description of Remus. Though uncomfortable, the male nurses had gamely done their duty to caress Dante's face when he'd turn his face blindly towards them. Occasionally, Dante would even want to lick or suck on their fingers. Most of the time though, it was fortunately enough that they'd run their fingers through his hair as if they were stroking a fond pet. Spencer often wondered what Dante was seeing in his mind's eyes when they did this for him. Considering the man's frequently expressed dislike and hatred of Remus, this unconscious desire for receiving comfort and 'approval' from the Abyss Goat was disturbing.

Dante did not seem to report further problems sleeping during the day or at night. He also did not tell Spencer about being raped nightly anymore, apparently believing now that it really was all a figment of his imagination. On some nights, before he left for the day, Spencer would give the male nurses a break and sit with Dante, singing softly to him until he went to sleep.

It seemed he was the singular exception to the appearance rule because of their long therapist and patient association. Most times, Dante stayed silently staring into space. But sometimes he would talk of his demons again; speaking fondly to Spencer of the special ones that he had found as guardians and friends. It had amused Spencer to hear Dante talk about a sword (Alastor) and a pair of Gauntlets (Ifrit) as if they were living things. Though it was curious that his guns Ebony and Ivory were not accorded the same reverence. Dante had given him a strange look once when he asked him why the guns weren't as inventively named. The silver-haired man had declared that they were just guns named so because one was black and the other white; and that Alastor and Ifrit were special entities that he hadn't named, but had earned the right to carry and use.

Spencer had checked with the Police lock up and curiously, they indeed were holding an ornate sword, a pair of gauntlets and a matching set of black and white pistols which belonged to Dante. As a lead, they had been a dead end too since Tony Redgrave, whose name appeared on the guns and who allegedly gave them to Dante, died several years earlier.

He once debated having them brought in to see how Dante would react, but dismissed the idea almost immediately knowing the Police would never have allowed it anyway. When he thought of these weapons, Spencer would marvel over how completely Dante appeared to live in his otherworld to have commissioned them. He wasn't to know that his world and belief was soon about to be shaken beyond his ability to understand.

*~*~*~*~*

His initial discovery seemed quite innocent at first. He had been reviewing the tapes recording the activities of Dante's room at night. As he was looking over tapes and dates, Spencer found a rather troubling anomaly. He had been looking at the previous day's tape but it instead appeared to be a recording taken from two Tuesdays ago when he had last sat with Dante until he fell asleep.

It could have been an honest mistake. However, with growing unease, Spencer had gone over the tapes for the last month and by comparing his observations to Dante's chart, he realised that someone had rather cleverly been showing the same scenes of certain nights again and again. So... just what did it mean for the other unmonitored nights?

Spencer did not waste time pondering this. Dante was his patient and he was charged by oath to protect the man and see to his well being. Not for the first time, Spencer bemoaned the fact that the sanatorium was a good two hours away from the city and his apartment. It meant it would take him an extra day to set up what he wanted without anyone the wiser, but he had no choice.

When he checked on Dante early the next morning, Spencer was careful to note that the man still exhibited symptoms of exhaustion despite an apparent full night of peaceful sleep. Spencer had to control his emotions and reactions when they conducted their usual conversation of the day about demons. He had to force himself to look pleased as Dante told him that his delusions appeared to be frustrated with him when he told them that it was all in his mind and that he wasn't being raped after all.

At the end of their conversation, Spencer had presented to Dante one of his drawings which he had framed for him. The silver haired man just smiled indulgently at him as he took down one of the other pictures in Dante's room and proudly hung up the one he made.

Spencer sincerely hoped that no one would pay very close attention to the framed drawing to discover the small digital video camera he had strapped into it. He had paid a near fortune for the tiny device, but if he was to protect his patient, Spencer would count it as money well spent. He didn't know what he'd find when he was finally ready to record a video, but he also hoped with all his heart that he was going to be proved wrong. However, in the meantime, Spencer was going to put plans in place in case his fears were substantiated.

That night and for the next few days, Spencer stayed with Dante through the night and into the morning, and returned to his apartment only in the afternoon. Remembering the apparent patterns he had seen with the hospital tapes, Spencer couldn't be sure that he would manage to capture anything on his video camera if he left it to chance.

In any case, while he hoped that it was only paranoia that currently guided him, Spencer had used his 'free' afternoons constructively by returning to his memories of his homeless days to look up old 'acquaintances' and shelters to check out how he could assist someone to disappear from the system if he had to. If indeed, this 'distinguished' sanatorium had nurses involved in a conspiracy of raping their more attractive inmates, Spencer was going to kidnap Dante to protect him and hide out until he could somehow present his video evidence to the proper authorities.

It pained him to have to consider this course of action behind the back of the friend who had literally pulled him out of the gutter and given him a job. But Spencer couldn't even be sure he could trust his friend, and he somehow hoped that his friend was truly innocent and ignorant to the cover up of what was happening at night.

After four nights with Dante, Spencer had his backup plans in place to sneak Dante out the next evening if the video evidence did corroborate his fears. So with great reluctance, Spencer petted the silver-haired man on the head on the evening on the fifth night, flicked a switch on the remote control that was in his pocket and left Dante peacefully sleeping alone in his room.

As he drove home that evening, Spencer said a little prayer to a God he had not believed in since his wife's murder two years earlier. It was 'show time'. Dear god… Spencer did not want to dwell too long on the speculation that some of the night nurses were wilfully gang raping the poor man at night without anyone's knowledge. It was to him unbelievable. The sanatorium was very well respected for its professionalism and conduct. Spencer just could not believe that the administration would have hired rapists. He desperately hoped that he was just being paranoid, and that all his plans and precautions were really for naught.

*~*~*~*~*

Spencer had wished to be disappointed, but he wasn't. However, the tape he had carefully retrieved from the exhausted man's rooms that morning did not contain anything he had expected at all.

Demons…

He was seeing *demons* carelessly strolling or energetically bouncing off the walls into Dante's room to grapple and pull the pants off the unresisting, strait-jacked man. As Spencer watched in horror, the demons held Dante's legs wide open and bent at the knees to expose him to the human like man who approached the bed; a man who had raven dark hair and golden eyes.

“Constipated shit and piss…” Spencer whispered as he recognised 'Remus' from Dante's descriptions.

> “Miss me, dear heart?” The man asked as he climbed between Dante's spread legs and reached out a hand to comb his fingers through Dante's silver hair.
> 
> “You're not real.” Dante did not bother looking at him.
> 
> “You are just too amusing.” Without the courtesy of stretching or even the application of lubricant, 'Remus' unzipped his pants and stabbed his eager cock into Dante's vulnerably exposed pucker. “Are you sure this is not real, Dante? Can't you feel me ripping you to pieces?”

Spencer had his hand over his mouth to catch his vomit as he desperately flailed his other hand under his desk to grab for his trash bin. His eyes refused to leave the small screen of the video camera as it captured the brutal rape of his patient by a being he had once thought was just a hallucination.

> Dante did not even react to the pain despite the tearing and the blood which soon started to stain his sheets. “Not real. Doctor showed me videos. It's all in my mind.”
> 
> “Precious. You are just too precious, Dante.” Remus gripped his head and forcefully turned his face towards him so that he could kiss the man brutally. “Has being near the portal truly addled your brain so much? And here I thought you held out so well?
> 
> “So your precious doctor has finally won, has he? He's finally convinced you that you're crazy.”
> 
> “Not real.”
> 
> “Oh, Dante.” Remus laughed as he fucked the helpless man; carelessly tearing Dante's anal passage with each brutal thrust of his cock. “I am so fond of you when you're like this.”

Spencer could not watch the tape anymore. He had called his secretary to have a janitor remove and clean his waste bin, and nodded to her in thanks when she offered him a hot tea and biscuits from the cafeteria along with a couple of aspirin. She had taken one look at his grey features and gently suggested that he call in sick and take the rest of the day off. But Spencer was determined not to leave without Dante. He instead waved her off cheerfully and scoffed about just needing a bit of fresh air; and perhaps legitimately goofing off while doing so by taking his patient for a stroll through the gardens. She just smiled at him as he reached for his small bag of what she thought was art supplies.

Knowing that he was going to be with Dante for one of his supposed art therapy sessions, the nurses would not go in search for them until they were gone for a full hour and a half. Spencer was going to hope that they would manage to cover some substantial distance by then and be near enough to the main road where he could call ahead for a taxi to pick them up before anyone realised they were missing.

Spencer hoped that with Dante dressed in the clothes he had packed into his 'art' bag he would look decent enough not to be taken as an asylum patient trying to escape. Spencer had to hope too that the shoes he had purchased for Dante were not too large and that he could easily compensate for differential sizes with the socks he packed for the man.

Once they were well out of sight of the buildings and parks, Spencer quickly stripped off Dante's straitjacket and asylum issued pyjamas. The clothes he had chosen for Dante thankfully fitted him well. The shoes were probably a little bit tighter than he expected, but that was better than having them easily slip off to trip the man as they walked at a good clip for the boundary of the property. They had made good progress through the woods, with Dante improving the further they got away from the sanatorium. Spencer was supposing that this was due to his distance from the 'portal' that 'Remus' had spoken of; a portal that demons emerged from.

Demons…

Spencer tried not to think of it right now. His foremost concern was to get Dante as far away from the sanatorium as he could go. He had to get the man away from the demons who abused him, who had been abusing him throughout his stay at the asylum; who he did not believe in...

His wife had seen demons too. They were real. She had described them to him and he had drawn them; just like he had drawn them for Dante. They were real. He had seen them on the video. He had seen demons. Demons killed his wife. They were real and they killed his wife.

Far behind them, Spencer thought he heard screaming; not the siren that called for the asylum to be locked down when one of their more dangerous inmates broke loose or escaped, it was *humans* screaming. Oh God… He had thought only of Dante's safety, he never gave a single consideration to the other inmates or the staff at the sanatorium.

As he continued to pull the silent man along after him, Spencer tried to shut his ears to the cries that were fading as they moved further and further away from the asylum. He had already committed himself to getting Dante safely away from his abusers; he was not going to turn back now. If he had to do it again…

Spencer pulled Dante after him at a faster pace. They were clearly in no danger of being chased down by the hospital staff, but it was the demons that Spencer was worried about now; the same demons who were probably slaughtering the humans at the hospital...

But why? Why now? Why when Dante departed and not before?

An eerie howl rose from far behind them. Spencer knew then that there weren't anymore humans alive at the sanatorium; that the demons were starting after them now. Behind him, Dante had stopped following docilely and halted to turn and look behind them.

“Remus?”

“Yes, Dante.” Spencer tugged at his arm and dragged the silver haired man after him. “Remus. Demons, Dante. I should have believed you.” I should have believed her...

“Demons…”

“Dante, run!” Spencer turned to grip the man about the arms and stared at him in the eye. “Run with me, now! We have to get away.”

“Demons…”

“Yes! Demons! They're real!” Spencer pulled him into a proper run instead of the shuffling, stumbling gait they had used earlier. “Run with me, Dante. Run!” More cries and howls drew closer as Spencer pulled the still dazed man after him as fast as he dared.

“Demons…”

"Yes! Dante, and if we don't hurry they'll catch us." Spencer threw a glace behind him as they ran. "Dante, can you try to remember a locker number and combination?"

"Demons..."

"Not demons. Lockers! At the bus station. 1165." Spencer had money and notes stashed there. The demons were catching up. If they didn't make it, perhaps Dante would get to it himself another time. "Can you remember that? 1165."

"1165."

"Good, Dante. 1165 the combination is your name. Can you remember that?"

"My name?"

"Yes, your name."

"At 1165..."

"Yes, that's right."

"1165..." Spencer pulled him along as they lapsed into silence again.

The world was ending as Spencer knew it. Demons were real-- lived among mankind. Some could walk among man. Dante's Remus-- Hair like constipated shit and eyes of piss…

Spencer had told Dante that Demons didn't exist. Repeated it to him often enough and showed him tapes that falsely showed him alone when Dante knew that demons had come in to rape and abuse him. And Dante believed him… believed him enough that he told the demons who were hurting and raping him that they were just figments of his imagination; faced by the truth, and yet still believing Spencer's lies… Just like his wife.

She had seen demons too. He didn't believe her. He had laughed at her delusions; made her not believe... He-- he had made her not respect the danger she was in. Her curiosity must have led her to the alley. Because she did not believe, she didn't know to avoid it. She was killed for her curiosity. His fault… it was his fault…

A ball of flames struck the ground to one side, throwing them off their feet. Spencer immediately spread his doctor's coat out and huddled over Dante protectively to shield him from the shower of dirt and gravel. He didn't dare look up; he could hear and feel the arrival of many presences.

“For shame, doctor, this isn't exactly the right procedure to discharge a patient.” Spencer recognised the voice as one he had heard earlier.

A hand, dripping with blood, casually caught him by the collar, dragged him off Dante and flung him against a tree a short distance away. “No! Stop!” Spencer painfully crawled to his feet and tried to stand himself between Remus and Dante.

The statuesque man gave him a sardonic look as he purposely strode past to kneel beside Dante. “Surely you don't think you can stop me.”

"You never gave him a chance to defend himself. He's still not exactly there..." Spencer croaked trying to fight down his fear to move as he felt a surge of protectiveness in him for his patient, as the bloody figure raised a hand to touch Dante's face.

“Why would it matter?" The demon in human guise stroked his bloodied hand through the silver hair almost affectionately, reminding Spencer of how he and his nurses had learnt to stroke Dante to calm him enough to sleep. "I was told his mind was gone anyway."

Spencer fell to his knees; his last hope gone. It wasn't proximity to the 'portal' that caused Dante's problems. He had thought that by taking him away-- No... Spencer forgot... the police had found Dante at Central Avenue already catatonic. The silver-haired man's mind was gone long before he was brought to the sanatorium; before the demons got their hands on him.

"I suppose, I should thank you for taking care of him as best as you could." Abruptly, the doctor looked up to notice that the man--demon was standing over his kneeling form. "And it was very commendable that you were willing to sacrifice your career and life to protect your patient. So, thank you."

Spencer close his eyes as Remus leaned forward, and felt him lay a kiss on his forehead. "A--abyss goat?"

"Why, yes." The demon smiled at him congenially.

"Remus." Both human and demon turned towards the voice to look upon a Dante who was exhibiting a glowing blue aura. "Full of constipated shit and piss…"

The last thing Spencer would ever remember was the sight of a violet glowing sword flying through the trees closely followed by a pair of ornate gauntlets, carrying a black and ivory gun in each palm.

*~*~*~*~*

The young doctor looked through the window of the padded room at the miserable figure hugging his knees and slowly rocking in place. He remembered being a bright young intern under this man and feeling eternally grateful for the senior doctor's guidance and patience during his tour of duty. To see Dr. Conrad Spencer as he was now broke his heart. "So... he's the only witness?"

"He's the only survivor!" The detective snorted. "Out of an asylum of over one hundred twenty-two nuts and caregivers, he's the only one who made it out alive. Everyone else was slaughtered. Some were even eaten!"

"He-- isn't a suspect?" Though he bristled internally from the very suggestion, the doctor had to ask. It was procedure.

"Heh, we found him in the woods pretty far away from the carnage; can't miss a trail that even a blind man could'a followed.” The detective snorted. “But he's no suspect, not unless he learned how to remove his own lips to plant one on his forehead and reattach them again."

"The hell!"

"Beautiful set of bloody lip prints on his forehead. Besides, the doctors verified that the last things that passed his lips were a bit of biscuit from the cafeteria and some tea, not human flesh. So he wasn't the cannibal that tore the other poor sods apart. The kisser though...” The detective squirmed at the thought. “That guy probably chewed on a few of the victims."

"So... You're not having much hope that he'll be coming out of this anytime soon, are you?" The young doctor sighed as he made a couple of notes on his pad and lead the detective out of this hospital wing.

"What do you think? It was a slaughter house in there. Whatever he saw, whoever he saw... Maybe we're better off not knowing."

"But the murderers?!"

"Found dried bones, bits of teeth and ashes too, kid; most of it surrounding the good doctor here.” The detective jerked a thumb back in the direction where they came from. "The teeth had human flesh on them."

"Fuck!"

"Yeah...” The detective shrugged with a sigh and repeated the statement he had believed would prevail over this highly irregular, mass murder case. “Maybe we're just better off not knowing."

*~*~*~*~*

"Dr. Spencer? Hey, it's me." Dante settled beside the silent man sitting at a table in one of the peaceful little gardens the home had scattered about the grounds. "Sorry it took so long for me to look you up.

The man ignored his visitor as he drew on the large sketch pad with his crayons. Dante scratched his head awkwardly as he leaned back on the seat beside the silent man. "I want to thank you, you know, for getting me out of there?

“Bad piece of luck, with the police sending me back to the place I was escaping from... You got me far enough away from the portal to let my head clear up. If the damn police didn't send me back there that time, I would have come back to myself eventually. Fucking portal was just messing things up in the old noggin'.”

The former psychologist just continued to draw, showing no sign at all that he heard a word Dante said to him. The silver haired man pulled at his hair in frustration as he looked over the unresponsive man. “Look, I-- got to the locker you set up. Remember? 1165? At the bus station?

“First I had to figure out which station you could have meant. You-- kinda forgot to tell me. Then I forgot the combination. Heh, but I didn't forget my name. Figured it out eventually... Clever bit with the key pad looking like a phone's.

"It was good of you to set things up for me, Doc. I was glad you left some money there too. I had to get out of those shoes you got me, Doc. I mean you did your best, and I'm grateful for it, but man did they pinch!

“I'm-- I'm sorry I left you behind, but I knew-- I thought they'd take care of you fine. After all, there was no way anyone would ever pin the murders back to you. And I could come back and find you; and you'd be okay, and we could--”

Silence still greeted him. Then Spencer looked up at Dante, and the hunter felt a brief flare of hope in him that he had managed to get through. However, that did not prove to be the case as the man had looked at him only because he wanted to show Dante a sketch. Dante's heart gave him a little twinge as he recalled the familiar gesture. The doctor had made this offer frequently during the months they spent together in 'art' therapy.

Examining the sketch, Dante sighed rather wistfully to note that the doctor's drawing of the Death Scythe was now more true to what they actually looked like. A pang of guilt hit him to remember the romanticised figures that the doctor used to draw for him. After Dante appeared to give his drawing sufficient attention, the Doctor took the sketch pad back, flipped the page and started drawing again.

“Right…” Dante pinched the skin between his eyes in defeat. “Least-- At least the police won't be after me anymore since they think I died back at the nuthouse.” Dante smiled wryly at him. “So I'm in the clear. To visit, I mean, without the police poking around.

“I guess-- I guess it's good bye till then.” Dante rose to his feet and lightly rested a hand on the doctor's shoulder. “The state's supposed to take care of you, seeing how you're the only witness of a disaster and all that… I-- I guess I'll see you around-- when I can.” The silver haired man waited a while longer before he gave a last friendly squeeze to the silent man's shoulder and left.

It was about a half hour later that the silent Dr. Spencer received another visitor; a statuesque man with raven black hair and golden brown eyes. “You know, doctor, I should be angry enough to kill you for making me lose my little toy.

“Because of you spiriting little Dante away, I lost my temper and took it out on one of our oldest hiding places for a portal in this pathetic little state.

“An exquisitely beautiful setup, I've always thought. No one would have noticed the portal's effects on the human psyche when the inmates were already slightly deranged to begin with. And there was ready entertainment as well whenever we wished it.”

The demon in human guise sighed as he slumped in the seat beside the silent man. “Now it's crawling with cops and biohazard workers. We had to close the portal or risk it being discovered. It'll be *decades* before we can even think of trying to restart this little investment.”

Remus turned towards the quietly drawing man. “I would kill you-- Except it would be more of a mercy now that you're like this.”

They sat together in silence for a long while before the doctor put down his crayons and offered Remus the sketch pad. Taking it in puzzlement, Remus looked at the drawing and blinked as he found a portrait of himself staring at him. It was a pretty accurate rendition at that, down to the glint in his eyes and the smirk Remus would wear on his lips when tormenting Dante.

Out of mischief, Remus reached for a red crayon and autographed the picture before handing it back to the artist. The doctor stared at it blankly for a moment before flipping the page and taking up a crayon to start drawing something else.

Remus shook his head and stifled a laugh for the man's sad state. “Good bye, doctor." He petted the head of the unresponsive man. "I hope you live a long life.”

Then Spencer was left alone again in the garden to draw his pictures under the distant, though watchful eyes of the many nurses scattered about the area with the other patients. None, however, were close enough to notice the former psychologist speak again as a new demon took form on the paper.

"I see Demons."

~Owari~

**Author's Note:**

> Original Character Remus belonged to Abyss Goat


End file.
